North America

After arriving in the United States, Espinet continued working with other exiled Siloists from Argentina and Chile in the Universal Humanist movement. He met Trudi at one of their gatherings in 1986, and they spent 25 years together, working and raising their five children, living in San Francisco, Argentina and finally Davis.

US President Obama urged autocratic Middle Eastern allies to look to Egypt’s example and encouraged the Iranian people to pursue their quest for democracy.
“You can’t maintain power through coercion,” Obama said in a stark message to Arab allies of the United States as protests raged in Algeria, Bahrain and Yemen following the ouster of presidents in Egypt and Tunisia.

Rebellion is in the air. The people of Egypt have given us a shining example of the power of nonviolent protest combined with absolute determination. But theirs is not the only example.
The Egyptian revolt was sparked by one in Tunisia that echoed in Syria, Jordan, Algeria, Yemen. Something is stirring in the Arab world. But that’s not all.

In recent weeks, popular uprisings in the Arab world have led to the ouster of Tunisian dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the imminent end of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s regime, a new Jordanian government, and a pledge by Yemen’s longtime dictator to leave office at the end of his term. We spoke to MIT Professor Noam Chomsky about the situation in Egypt.

US President Obama signed ratification documents for a new START nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia, in a showpiece moment for his “reset” of ties with the Kremlin.
Obama signed the documents in the Oval Office surrounded by key senators and top national security and military officials, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

We are about to witness a new and a rather unconventional contribution of the immigrant community in New York. This time it will not be with work and cheap labor, or with cultural art and entertainment, or even with food. It will be by resuscitating our old and paralyzed democracy. The state of affairs of our democracy is in general pathetic, and even worse at the local level.

As the Middle East Quartet prepares to meet on February 5 in the southern German city of Munich to end the agonizing deadlock in Israeli-Palestine peace talks, a high-ranking United Nations official has expressed “an extreme concern” about the precarious situation in the tension-ridden and war-torn Middle East region.

Chinese President Hu Jintao has wrapped up a state visit to the U.S. were he delivered an address in which he renounced “hegemony” and “expansionism.”
Hu Jintao: “We will remain committed to the path of peaceful development, continue to strive for a peaceful international environment to develop ourselves and uphold and promote world peace through our own development”.

“Democracy is a contract with the voters: “if elected I will try to enact my program.” That traitor to democracy, Obama, with a rhetoric of change, attracted the underprivileged–blacks, reds, Hispanics, women, youth, workers, and betrayed them all; but not his benefactor Goldman Sachs, favoring bailing them out way above stimulus.”

U.S. Vice President Biden has reaffirmed a U.S. pledge to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of the year. Biden met top officials in Baghdad for the first time since Iraqi lawmakers agreed on a new government last year. Biden says he told the Iraqi government the U.S. is committed to meeting a status of forces agreement that calls for a full U.S. withdrawal this year.